Bristow's of Crediton

Three generations of the Bristow family have made this small Devon business a sweet success. Its origins are Victorian but Bristow’s of Devon opened its factory in the mid-Devon town of Crediton in 1932. The confectionery-makers specialise in chocolate, clotted cream toffee and fudge playing to the area’s strengths as a dairy farming community. The factory at its height employed several hundred people before enduring buyouts and takeovers. David Mudd reports.

It’s most recent reincarnation has reprieved the name of Bristows and a family member, Frank Bristow is on the Board. The company makes traditional nostalgic varieties of sweet and has launched a range of sugar-free products and drinks. The Bristow factory were early milk chocolate pioneers and combined jelly and honey with an outer coating of milk chocolate and called it Cho-hone, one of its signature products. Fudge is thought to have first been produced in America by accident but with the addition of clotted cream in Devon and Cornwall, the South West region's particular brand of fudge and toffee is hard to beat. This brand marketed as artisanal traditional confectionery is exported around the world.